


Hazy

by esama



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Bottom Sephiroth, Dom Cloud, M/M, Out of Character, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-02
Updated: 2014-09-02
Packaged: 2018-02-15 20:58:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2243286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/esama/pseuds/esama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Insanity shouldn't be so appealing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hazy

**Author's Note:**

> Written with the power of vodka and proofread by Darlene

It was completely by chance that Sephiroth came upon him. It was one of those nights when he couldn't sleep, when his body kept on buzzing with unused energy and everything felt constricting. For a while he tried to force himself to sleep, but of course that never worked, so in the end he ventured out of his rooms and into the dimly lit corridors, to head to the training rooms for a private work out session, in hope of exhausting himself enough to actually feel tired.

And there he was, smack in the middle of the biggest training room, with the monitoring systems all turned off for the night, the motion sensors disengaged, the locks picked neatly open. Blond, pale, small, his eyes shut and his upper body utterly shirtless, with only the blue of his trousers and the design of his boots marking him as an infantryman. That itself was strange, to see an infantryman in the training rooms in the middle of the night. But the weapons he was training with – they had to be the biggest blades in the training room's weapons rack, just a couple inches short of Angeal's Buster Sword.

The scene was like from a dream, this small slip of a man, shining under the electric lights with the sheer power of his paleness, his skin gleaming with sweat, and with those weapons – both of them almost taller than he was. And not only was he wielding the weapons with power that didn't match the thinness of his body and arms, but he was doing so with incredible skill and breathless grace, more old man with decades worth of practice, than youth under eighteen.

In the end Sephiroth ended up not training at all that night, but instead spent the night watching the young blond practice, tracking every graceful movement closely with his gaze and pressing them to his memory. Swings and thrusts, blocks and parries – the youth almost danced under the electric lights, and it was breathlessly beautiful to look at.

The youth trained for about four hours in silent concentration and then put the blades away, stretched his slim, sweat drenched body before picking up his jacket and shirt and heading for the showers, leaving Sephiroth standing in the shadows, wondering.

 

* * *

 

The second time Sephiroth saw him was during a sortie. A small band of Wutai insurgents had been sighted in the sector four slums and Sephiroth was too bored to say no when the call came. He was to lead a squad of eight infantryman below the plate and capture or, if it came to it, kill the insurgents. All in all, a simple mission.

He ended up killing four of the insurgents and capturing two, and then he saw from the corner of his eye a bit of movement – movement which was then covered by an infantryman stepping in the way to try and block the sight, riffle slung downwards, his pose unnaturally at ease. Behind him, a piece of metal slid down, to cover a hole in the pile of junk, hiding something.

The infantry man couldn't have been unaware of it. No, he had to have stepped there intentionally.

"Secure the prisoners," Sephiroth ordered and then marched over to the infantryman and pushed him aside – or tried to. Instead of the usual flimsy softness of unenhanced human body, his hand met the unnatural rock hardness he was used to feeling in SOLDIERs and not in normal troopers, and the infantryman didn't budge even a hair's width.

"Private," Sephiroth said, his hand clasping around the short, slim trooper's bicep – and it remained as solid as metal beneath his gloved hand.

"Sir," the man answered, calm and still relaxed.

Sephiroth narrowed his eyes, glancing down at the man's arm and then back at the helmet adorned head. "Move aside."

The infantryman stood there for a moment, rock solid and still, before tilting his head to the side, listening. By the time he did step aside and Sephiroth could uncover the hideout in the junk pile, the alcove hidden beneath a sheet of rusted aluminium was, of course, empty, with no evidence of anyone having been there.

"Your name, Private?" Sephiroth said, dropping the aluminium sheet with disgust.

"Cloud Strife," came the answer, cool as anything.

"You're with me, Strife."

The Private followed him wordlessly, trough the final check-ups and last look around the slums, through the transport back above the plate and to the HQ, where the Wutai insurgents were taken away for interrogation. He remained quiet and unnervingly relaxed all the way up the elevators and to Sephiroth's office, where he stood, calm and by all appearances unconcerned, before the SOLDIER First.

"You helped a number of the Wutaian's escape," Sephiroth said, not quite an accusation.

"Yes I did," Strife answered, utterly shameless.

"That's treason."

"Last I looked, ShinRa wasn't a country."

"Then it's a failure of duty," Sephiroth said, eyes narrowing – and Strife actually smiled a tiny little smile at that. Whoever he was, he had balls to spare. "Off with the helmet," Sephiroth ordered.

And there he was, the blond youth, capable of using swords entirely too big to him – which explained the hardness of his arm. And the shine of his eyes, overwhelmingly brilliant and obviously glowing even in the well-lit office, explained the rest.

"You're the worst spy ever," Sephiroth said.

"Good thing I'm not a spy," Strife answered.

"Then what are you?"

The blond considered it. "Not quite sure," he said and then, suddenly, he was right in front of Sephiroth, with only inches between them. An instant later, Sephiroth was on the floor, the young man sitting astride his chest, hands clasped around his throat.

"Oh," Strife whispered while Sephiroth made to rip the hands off his neck, and found himself unable to shift them. "Oh, this would be easy," the young man whispered while the SOLDIER kicked and swung at him and could do _nothing_ to make him so much as twitch.

Then he was squeezing, hard, his fingers less like something made from flesh and bones and more like something industrial and hard, as unforgiving as steel. Stars swung across Sephiroth's vision and he realised that not only was Strife blocking his airway, but he was squeezing hard enough to stop the blood flow.

And there was nothing he could do.

"Even you'd die from this," Strife murmured and something in Sephiroth's neck was making _grinding_ noises at the pressure the blond was putting there. "So, so easy."

The pressure then eased and Sephiroth could grasp for breath. Blood rushed back in and his vision blurred into something like clarity as he drew ragged, desperate breaths and for the entirety of it, the young man watched him with keen, glowing eyes, hands resting now almost lightly at Sephiroth's throat.

"Hello," Strife whispered, smiling. "I believe that," he pushed backwards and Sephiroth let out a noise of horror as the younger man's ass dragged across his crotch. "Yeah that's definitely a hard on."

"I will _kill_ you," Sephiroth snarled, his voice an awkward wheeze, still breathless.

"No you won't," Strife said, straightening up a bit and releasing Sephiroth's throat. The moment Sephiroth made to grab at him, he was gone, landing easily on his feet couple meters away. And when Sephiroth reached for Masamume, fully intending to run Strife through, the door was already closing behind him.

Later, after the Wutai Insurgents had been interrogated, it came out that they weren't an organised group looking to sabotage ShinRa and Midgar – but a family, looking for a place to hide. Sephiroth had killed the father, the uncle, and two of the sons while the mother and third son had been captured and were executed later for their _crimes_.

All that remained were the two girls, seventeen and eleven years of age, who had somehow evaded capture during the arrest.

 

* * *

 

The third time Sephiroth saw Strife, the blond was chatting amiably with Zack Fair in the company cafeteria. For a while Sephiroth just stared at him in surprise, because the Strife sitting there was very different from the man that had pinned him against the office floor.

The blond next to Zack was ducking his head down and blushing, looking embarrassed and sheepish about something Zack was saying. Zack grinned and threw his arm around the blond, the younger man swayed into it, as if the arm across his shoulders was heavy, as if he was weak. When Zack leaned in to whisper something conspiratorially, the blond man's eyes widened in horror and he blushed even harder. He was acting almost… coy.

His eyes weren't quite shining anymore either.

It was the same man though, Sephiroth was certain of that. The bone structure of his face, the hair, the eyes even if they didn't seem to glow… it was all the same.

"Hey, Sephiroth! Meet your biggest fan!" Zack called at him suddenly, arm still around Strife's shoulder, pulling the blond man in while Strife almost _flailed_ in his grasp. "Come on, Cloudy, say hello!"

"Zack, oh my god, _don't_ ," Strife almost wailed, covering his face with his hands. "I'm gonna _die_."

"Oh don't be like that. Sephiroth won't bite ya," Zack grinned and then peered down at Strife. "Or would you like that? Eh, Cloudy? Eh, eh?"

" _Stop it_!"

Sephiroth stared at the display in silent confusion, trying to fit the man he'd been bested by and this flailing _thing_ into the same cast. While the surface looked about the same…

"Come on Sephiroth, keep Cloudy company while I get a cup of coffee, will ya?" Zack said, waving him over before bouncing to his feet. "Ask him about the poster!" the black haired SOLDIER added and almost flounced off, laughing at Strife's outraged shout.

Too confused and too curious to pass it by, Sephiroth walked over and sat across from Strife – and the moment the blond turned to look at him, it was once again a whole different man in front of him. The steely glow of his eyes was back, his expression like carved marble.

"Poster?" Sephiroth asked.

"It's life sized. I do _unimaginable_ things to it," Strife answered, soft, almost purring – and it shot right through Sephiroth like bolt of lightning.

"I looked you up," Sephiroth said, trying not to sound like he'd been affected. "Your records are seriously lacking and you seem to be bouncing from squad to squad at your whim. You've hacked the system."

"Hm-mm," Strife said, his head tilting, eyes considering. "Gonna try and arrest me again?"

Sephiroth's eyes narrowed at that, at the hint of a smile on the younger man's lips. "Who are you?" he demanded. "What are you doing here?"

"No idea," Strife answered. "Not looking to kill little girls, anyway."

Sephiroth frowned. "Looking to kill SOLDIERs instead?" he asked.

"Didn't kill you, did I?" Strife said, tilting his head a little and glancing towards the cafeteria counter from the corner of his eyes, making a very good pretence of not doing any such thing. Zack was in the middle of chatting up the cashier and was paying them no attention.

"So?" Strife asked. "Are you going to try and arrest me?" he asked and grinned a little at Sephiroth grimace. "You're really in need of it, I'm guessing."

"I'm _not_ –"

"Aren't you?" Strife said, shifting where he was sitting. God only knew when he'd gotten his boot off, but there it was, right between Sephiroth legs, the ball of his sock clad foot pressing against the constricted hardness below.

Sephiroth gripped the table's edge hard enough to make the metal _bend_.

"So?" Strife asked again, dragging his toes up and down, smiling like the insufferable little shit he was.

And fuck, for a moment Sephiroth was tempted – that was what made him almost stumble to his feet and beat a hasty exit from not just the table and the conversation, but the cafeteria entirely. Strife made no sound, but he could swear the man was laughing after him.

 

* * *

 

He couldn't stop thinking about Strife after that – and, much to his annoyance, it seemed like the young man was suddenly everywhere. Constantly around Zack, hanging around the cafeteria, the training rooms, the corridors – and somehow Sephiroth always ended up walking right past him. He was half sure Strife was _stalking_ him – with the man's apparent abilities with hacking, it was entirely possible.

And Strife kept _acting_. He'd quiver and shy away and duck his head and step aside and blush and he made it so damn believable too. It was as disturbing as it was fascinating and Sephiroth was painfully aware of how it must've looked to others – Zack certainly seemed to enjoy the spectacle, making pointed remarks about Sephiroth being _obvious_ with his constant _looming_ and how he was going to give poor little Spiky a heart attack one of these days.

"I know he's pretty and all, but you need to give the poor kid a break," Zack cackled.

And of course Zack went on to spread the rumours, or somebody did – because Sephiroth got a very heartfelt lecture from Angeal about being nice and kind and gentle and how breakable normal people were and how glaring at people wasn't a good way to make friends and that surely his "pretty trooper boy" would like it better if Sephiroth just smiled a little.

Genesis, the bastard, just laughed his ass off.

Strife, meanwhile, didn't seem to do much – he made a pretence of being a normal, albeit shy trooper and somehow people bought it. He worked normally, he didn't do anything out of ordinary outside bouncing from squad to squad as it suited him – and hanging around the SOLDIER floors entirely too much for someone who wasn't actually a SOLDIER himself.

If he was a terrorist or a spy or something like that, he wasn't acting like it, not as far as Sephiroth could tell.

It was frustrating, all of it. Extremely, gratingly frustrating, so much so that eventually Sephiroth broke, right in middle of a rather traffic rich corridor at the sight of the blond demurely looking down as he carried a pile of papers in his arms.

"Strife, come here," he snarled and then dragged the blond with him, to the elevators and up to the administrative floor, to his office – where he locked the door and turned on the blond.

A split second later, Strife had dropped the stack of papers, Sephiroth's back collided against the closed door, and Strife was pushing him against him, as hard and as strong as he was in all of the damned dreams Sephiroth wished he wasn't having.

"Yes?" Strife asked, eyes gleaming, his hands almost tearing at Sephiroth's belt. "Yes? Yes? _Yes_?"

"What - " Sephiroth answered, and watched Strife go down, dragging his trousers with him as he went. "… Fuck."

"Yeah, okay," Strife answered. "I was going to give you a blow job, but, okay."

Then Sephiroth was suddenly turned with his face against the door, wide eyed with surprise as Strife pushed his coat hem out of the way and – " _Ohfuck-!_ " – Strife was spreading his ass cheeks, and then there was something wet and warm against him, trailing up and down his crack, up to the tail bone, down to the balls. Up again and then, no hesitation, no pause, licking its way inside.

Wide eyed and frozen with the shock of the sudden sensation, Sephiroth stared at the door with almost blank incomprehension. An astonished gasp escaped his lips as Strife pushed his face closer, his tongue making its way deeper - and then, again without a fucking pause, there were fingers, rubbing around the edges, around the tongue – and then dipping inside, two of them at once, around the tongue.

Strife pulled back just enough to breathe, "Spread up, spread, _come on_ ," against Sephiroth's ass, before diving back in, wet and hot and messy and with a moan of disbelief Sephiroth spread his legs and pushed back into it because, because – oh _fuck_.

"Oh," Strife murmured, as Sephiroth bit almost through his lip to keep himself from crying out. The orgasm came on with about as much warning as Strife had, and suddenly he was shuddering with it, his hips flexing, his buttocks and ass clenching hard against the man's hand.

"I'm guessing nobody's as much as touched your ass before," Strife commented idly, almost gently thrusting his fingers in and out a couple of times, making Sephiroth automatically clench around them and whine against his now bloodied lip. "Whoever you've slept with has been missing out oh so much. It's a _great_ view."

"S-shut up," the SOLDIER moaned and then slid down the door, to his knees, Strife's hand following him down, fingers staying where they were. "Take your fucking hand –"

"My _fucking_ hand," Strife almost mocked, but his fingers slid out. A moment later, he was pulling Sephiroth back, to his chest, tilting his head back to look at him. "Hello, my gorgeous virgin," he said, smiling, his hands travelling down against the buckles of Sephiroth's coat, to collect his still twitching dick in them.

"I'm going to _kill_ you," Sephiroth groaned, looking down at where the man was fondling him.

"No you're not," Strife murmured, smiling – and then leaned down and _bit_ Sephiroth on the neck hard, almost hard enough to draw blood. Sephiroth let out a hiss and could feel himself harden a little in answer, his whole body flushing with heat.

"I'm going to fuck you," Strife murmured, low and heated and smiling right against his ear. "So, _so_ hard."

"Not before you tell me who the hell you are and what the hell you're doing here," Sephiroth hissed, pushing into the man's hands, his vision going a little blurry as the man gripped him tighter.

"Oh, fine," Strife said. "I'll just have to keep you entertained other ways until I figure it out," he added, and bit at his ear lobe, the fingers of his left hand dipping down to cup and roll Sephiroth balls while the right one stroked him hard and relentless. Then he shifted down further, his face against the middle of Sephiroth's back as his fingers slid further down and Sephiroth came with a low moan, with Strife's fingers buried deep.

 

* * *

 

"Finally banged the pretty trooper? _Freshly laid_ suits you," Genesis commented.

"Does this mean you're going to stop stalking him?" Angeal asked.

"If you hurt my Cloudy I will kill you!" Zack swore.

Sephiroth walked out without a word.

 

* * *

 

He found Strife couple days later, surrounded by tree burly SOLDIERs, all of them leering. "Well, we're nothing like the General of course," one of them said, leaning in. "But you did such a nice thing for him, and I'm betting you can do a nice thing for us too, couldn't you? We're in awful shape, you see."

"We need a little tender loving care too," another said, stroking Strife's chin.

"It's all the same in the end, isn't it? A cock's a cock so as long as it goes to the right place, right?"

And Strife was just standing there, shaking and quivering and looking ridiculously terrified and Sephiroth could just _stare_ with disbelief. Sure, Strife was one hell of an actor, but acting was one thing. Just standing there like an idiot and taking it?

"What the fuck are you doing?" Sephiroth asked. The question was directed at Strife, but the SOLDIERs didn't realise that. He'd never heard such bullshit excuses in his life – helping him, very lost you see, looking for you, sir, we were just telling him, he had a thing on his cheek, sir, I just removed it, all clean now. Nor had he seen grown men running quite so fast, not before he levelled his glare at them and with just that, send them all running.

"What the hell was that?" he asked looking at Strife.

The blond ducked his head, as if ashamed – looking at Sephiroth from beneath his stupidly long eyelashes with eyes gleaming. "You shouldn't be so surprised," he said, low enough that the spectators had no hope of hearing. "Half this building want to fuck me, just because _you did_."

"Tch," Sephiroth answered. "You are _ridiculous_."

"Hmm-hm," Strife hummed and lifted his head, not all the way, still acting coy for the spectators. "It's getting kinda annoying actually," he admits. "Wanna mark your territory a bit?"

"Excuse me?"

Strife ducked his head back down, as it struck, and smiled. "Go on. Grab me and drag me away," he said, challenging. "Like you did before. And I'll bend you over your desk and suck you dry through your cock until there's nothing left."

…damn the man for being able to just _say_ that, just like that, right there in middle of damn corridor with a fucking crowd around them.

With a grimace Sephiroth did as told, grabbing Strife – but like hell did he have the patience to try and tackle the elevator. No, instead he dragged Strife to the nearby weapons closet, which held riffles and swords and whatnot for emergencies and which, happily, he had a key card to.

Strife blinked at him as the door locked behind them, leaving them in the two by three by three meter space, lit only by a single, fairly dim, lamp. And everyone outside would know damn well what they were about to do – except, no they didn't. They didn't have a fucking clue.

Strife blinked again. "Alright," he said and then bounced at Sephiroth, shoving him against yet another door, clawing his way through his clothing, down his body – and then Sephiroth was swallowed to the hilt, Strife's fingers already pushing eagerly at his hole, nudging and prodding and trying to squirm inside. It was dry and awkward and rough and it actually hurt a little and it was all Sephiroth could do, biting down onto his own fist, to keep from crying out.

It was over in a fucking _instant_.

"Fuck," Strife groaned, his mouth a wet, swollen mess, his chin streaked. "Sephiroth, for fuck's sake. Was that your first blow job? Have you ever been with _anyone_?"

The SOLDIER swallowed and said nothing.

Strife stared up at him from the floor, blue eyes glowing with disbelief. "Ah," he then said, the disbelief easing into understanding and he lowered his eyes. With an embarrassed sigh, Sephiroth leaned his head back, the back of his head thumping against the door.

"Come here. Come on, down here, now," Strife then said, his voice awkward and choked, his fingers clawing at the SOLDIER's hip bones. "Come on."

Sephiroth slid down to his knees and Strife climbed into his lap, like an awkward cat, his arms winding around Sephiroth's shoulders. And then Strife kissed him.

It was _disgusting_.

"Strife –" Sephiroth complained, trying to pull back. "You're a mess,"

"Oh, right, cum. Sorry," the blond muttered and swallowed, running his tongue over his teeth and lips, swallowing again. "Okay, again," he said, and pushed for another kiss.

It was still more or less disgusting, the taste of it – taste of _himself_ – about as foreign as the kiss. But Strife was as shameless and as insistent – and as confidently experienced a he was with everything else – and after a moment Sephiroth found himself relaxing into it, into to the tugging and pulling and press of lips, the wetness, the warmth – the tongue licking at his lips and then at his teeth and finally at the inside of his mouth.

"Fucking awkward," Strife pronounced it, wiping at his chin, and it _was_ , it was too wet and the taste was awful – one of them was fucking _drooling_ and it was hard to tell which because it was all over their chins. They still dived right back in, Sephiroth's hands going around the man's waist, pulling him in.

They got better at it. They found a rhythm. It _definitely_ didn't get any cleaner though.

"Here," Strife moaned somewhere through the forty fifth kiss, and took Sephiroth's hand down, to open his pants – moment later they were pinned together in Sephiroth hand, cock against a cock, making the mess even worse. "Not so tight, fuck," Strife grunted at him. "Shit, you've never done this either, have you?"

"Shut up," Sephiroth grunted and looked down, trying to figure out how much strength to use. His eyes went a little wide at the sight of two hot red cock heads, his own messy and rather disgusting, and Strife's leaking all over the place. He was longer than Strife by a good measure, thicker too, all over just bigger, and it looked weird.

It looked amazing.

"Yeah. Yeah, like that, yeah," Strife breathed when Sephiroth made to press them together a little tighter, but not tight enough to hurt. Then he tugged, slow and careful, the shape of them so weird in his hand, the flare and dip of the cock heads, the roundness, the slip and slide of foreskin…

"Now down, gently. Come on," Strife urged him, his hips twitching and Sephiroth stroked down, groaning against the younger man's mouth. They fell back into kissing, with Sephiroth tugging and twisting them in between, with Strife starting to push into it, thrusting his hips, dragging his ass across Sephiroth's folded legs. It was all unbearably, uncomfortably hot, and Sephiroth could feel his hair sticking to the sides of his face with sweat and he knew they'd be a mess after this.

Somehow the best – the worst – thing about it was that Strife didn't _touch him_. Instead the man kept his hands on each side of Sephiroth's head, braced against the wall, not touching, letting Sephiroth do all the work. It had the flavour of a _lesson_ to it and it made everything so much worse and better all at once.

It took longer, Sephiroth kept making literally painful mistakes, but eventually there was a mess – to which Strife added by gripping his own still hard cock and stroking himself hard and fast into completion, streaking it all across Sephiroth's jacket and crotch.

"Really?" Sephiroth panted with dismay.

"Hmm-hm," Strife said, and returned to kissing him.

 

* * *

 

After the spectacle they made, leaving the closet looking like they did, no one bothered Strife again. Zack wailed at Sephiroth for hours for _defiling Cloudy's honour_ and _reputation_ and so on and so on. Angeal gave Sephiroth many disappointed look. Genesis was very proud. It was all very tiresome.

He found Strife next in the training rooms, again waving the enormous practice swords around.

"Do you always practice shirtless?" Sephiroth asked, leaning against the door frame.

Strife didn't answer, his eyes shut, his body moving without a pause. It was almost as if he didn't know he had a spectator – but of course, someone of Strife's calibre wouldn't have missed his arrival.

"How did you get to be this strong? You obviously have Mako enhancements. SOLDIER level ones, at that, maybe higher," Sephiroth said idly. "And you have the skill, you have training, at least some sort of training. Much more than anyone could get in the _infantry_. What's all that strength for? What are you _for_? Why were you made?"

Strife still didn't answer, just kept on moving.

"I'm starting to think you really don't know yourself. I think you don't _remember_ ," Sephiroth continued. "Can't blame you really. I don't remember much from before my twelfth year. Not an uncommon side effect of Mako, that one. Do you even know your real name? Is Cloud Strife your real name, or did you just pick it up somewhere?"

The swords were still moving, steady and strong and lethally graceful through the air.

"Why did you come here, why to ShinRa – why go through all that trouble, and then do nothing with it? Why make the pretence of being a weak coy little boy in front of everyone else, and then show your strength to me and just me? Why show it to me at all? You made it pretty obvious right from the start, and that was very risky for you."

Sephiroth paused, just to watch the dance of light on Strife's slightly sweaty skin. He was still thin, what little muscle definition he had making him only look _thinner_ somehow. Short and thin and very blond and eye-catchingly pretty. Strife was a walking contradiction, and had probably been designed that way – to fool the viewer. Only something had gone wrong, and now Strife was loose, his creators forgotten, his handlers left behind – floating in ShinRa without a goal and without aim.

"Why me? Why did you latch on to me?" Sephiroth wondered. "I'm thinking you were sent here to kill me and for a moment you remembered. And then you forgot."

"I didn't," Strife answered without opening his eyes, without stopping. "I just decided I didn't want to."

Sephiroth considered that and nodded. "So you do remember?"

The blond man smiled. "No, I don't. I just have a feeling about things I ought to do. Kill you. The presidential family. Blow up some facilities…" he shifted into another kata seamlessly. "And I might still do some of those things, who knows. I wouldn't be surprised if I had a trigger, somewhere, ready to be flicked to set me to blow."

Sephiroth frowned at that. "But you don't want to," he said.

"Not you anyway."

They were silent until Strife finished his kata, and then the blond turned to face him, the two swords held at his sides, deadly and at the ready, but his shoulders were relaxed, his grip on them loose. "If it comes down to it, don't get in my way," he said. "I'll tear you apart and there will be nothing you can do. _Don't get in my way._ "

"So sure of your strength," Sephiroth murmured, smiling faintly.

Strife frowned and then turned away, to take the practice swords to their racks. "Or don't. Die trying to stop me, whatever. I don't care."

"Yes you do," Sephiroth answered. "Enough to tell me to get away, you do."

Strife didn't answer for a while, just picked up his shirt and pulled it on. Then he looked up. "You got a bed?"

"Most people do. Why?"

"Why do you think?" Strife asked with a snort and walked over to him, hands coming to Sephiroth's waist before reaching around, to grab a greedy hold of Sephiroth's ass. "You said not before. Before came and went."

Sephiroth swayed into the hold a little. "Is everything about sex for you?"

"No. About pleasure. Pain and pleasure and I'd rather feel more of the latter than the former, if I get to pick," Strife said, nuzzling into his chest. "And I think you're starting to feel about the same, now that you know what it's like."

Sephiroth considered that and he couldn't deny it. There were… many reasons, all of them very fucked up, as to why he'd never had sex before – and they all could be laid at Hojo's and ShinRa's science department's feet. They'd taught him it was pain; that pleasure was pain, that _everything_ was pain and that he was better off striving towards detachment and nothingness than sensation.

"I really want to fuck you," Strife murmured. "I'll make it so good, promise."

Sephiroth closed his eyes "Can you make it slow?" he asked. "Make it last for a long while?"

"Yeah," the shorter man murmured, low. "I can do that, yeah. I'll make it last for hours, I'll make you lose your mind, I'll make you forget that pain's even a _thing_." He looked up, his hold easing and his hands sliding up, to embrace rather than grope. "I'll fucking make love to you, if that's what you want."

Sephiroth laughed at that. " _Fucking_ make love," he muttered, covering his eyes with a hand. "You're _ridiculous_. Insane and absolutely ridiculous."


End file.
